Guys in Bars
by Insane Troll Logic
Summary: So, these two guys walk into a bar...


**Title**: Guys in Bars  
**Rating**: PG-13 for language and violence  
**Disclaimer**: DA is not mine  
**Summary**: So, these two guys walk into a bar  
**Author's note**: I think it's something like three fic-a-thons in a row I've asked for White and Lydecker attempting to outbadguy each other. Clearly it is only my brain that concocts such wild plots.  
**Warnings:** I love White to death, but in the end, I love Lydecker more. Also, it's been said before but there is something wrong with me.

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**Guys in Bars**

So, these two guys walk into a bar, right? And one's got this completely bad-ass black duster and black leather gloves and a starched white shirt with a (you guessed it) black tie and he's definitely compensating for something with an outfit like that. The other guy's not nearly as well put together, wearing a dripping wet black sweater, broken glasses, mussed hair. The first guy's got this look on his face like someone just held it in front of a pile of shit, and the other one looks like he thinks the world is out to kill him (and it is).

And these two guys, they walk into the same bar at the same time and sit side by side on the bar stools and say, "Scotch on the rocks."

They know each other. Of course they know each other. It wouldn't be much of a joke if they didn't. You probably know them too.

See there's Ames White, general bad-ass, product of breeding with snakes, or breeding with snake blood, or whatever the hell that was supposed to be. He's involved with some pretty rough shit (no, not related to the shit perpetually under his nose) it's got something to do with the apocalypse or killing all transgenics or just killing everyone—no one really cares.

Then there's Donald Lydecker, former head of project Manticore. Bad guy turned ambiguous moral guy, turned 'I'm sick of all this shit' guy. He'd almost died tonight, almost died when someone ran him off the road and into the river and he'd decided that now's as good a time as any to revisit alcoholism.

Yeah, it was White that tried to get Lydecker killed that and that's a joke all in itself.

(but not _the joke_. You get the difference, right?)

So these two guys, they're drinking, right? Downing shot after shot because Lydecker almost got freaking killed today and White's drawn the shittiest job ever in rounding up rogue transgenics and exterminating them and he wants to kill them, really he does, but he's still a human being and there's a few of those transgenics that are flat up too gorgeous to put a bullet through.

So the two guys start drinking and keep drinking and there's a good long while that passes before White turned to Lydecker and says, "Don't I know you?"

"Do you?" Lydecker slurs.

"Yeah," White says. "You're that guy. The guy with the government. I'm working on covering your ass!"

"Which makes you White," Lydecker says, real calm, like. He's a mildly introspective drunk. "What do you think your name is supposed to symbolize? Because you're most definitely not a white hat."

"No one," White says, drawing himself up. "Gets to call me a white hat. I have a black hat at home. It's a big black hat."

"Makes up for you being short," Lydecker grumbles, motioning for the bartender. "Can I just get the bottle?"

"I though you were in AA?" White sneers. "You know, a recovering alcoholic?"

"I thought your face was an alcoholic," Lydecker retorts

"I thought your mom was an alcoholic."

Lydecker pauses, fumbling with the bottle of scotch. He blinks in confusion. "Isn't your mom a snake?"

"Don't talk about my mother like that."

(That's not the joke either, but we're getting closer)

Lydecker shrugs and takes a long swig out of his bottle of scotch. "Shouldn't you be tracking down the transgenics?"

White blinks. "Shouldn't you be dead."

Lydecker smirks. "I gots better."

"Right," White says, taking a drink of his own.

"You suck," Lydecker tells White. "You have transgenics in view-a public. Good covert thingie there, Bad-White"

"Better than you," White sneers. "Ten years and you caught no one."

"Key word is covert," Lydecker says smugly. "And I did find them. Not turning them in was a tactical maneuver."

"Your tactical maneuver sucks. You call yourself a bad guy."

And here's the thing about guys in bars, especially guys that don't like each other drinking in bars: things escalate when the testosterone comes out to play.

"Hey," Lydecker says and he's puffing up his chest like that makes him look tough instead of ridiculous. "One time I scooped out an eyeball with a spoon."

"Wow," White said. "That all you got? Once I strangled someone with a live snake."

"I helped design a real live batman," Lydecker. "It could totally fly."

"I exterminated your batman yesterday."

Something like hurt flickers over Lydecker's face and for a moment he looks like he's going to cry, but then he says, "I've killed people. A child once."

"I've read the files," White says and they're both standing up now. "An escapee, your responsibility. I've killed babies—for the cult it's practically a requirement."

They're both too focused to notice, but there are people backing away from them. The bartender's on the phone with the police.

"I don't need me a cult," slurs Lydecker. "Son, I could kick your ass right here, right now."

White laughs, and takes another shot from the bar. "I'd like to see you try old man. You have not seen my ninja fu. I'd break you in half."

"Oh yeah?" Lydecker says.

"I could beat you with my eyes closed," White confirms smugly and then, for emphasis, he closes his eyes.

Lydecker looks at him in amazement and then he shoots White in the face, sits back down at the bar and continues nursing his scotch.

...and that, that's the joke right there, my friends.

No, seriously, why aren't you laughing?

(The end)

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**A post-script**: Lydecker is arrested and sentenced to a life in prison only to escape a year later using only a banana, a toothpick and a pack of gum. Ames White's body is cremated and his identity taken over by his identical twin brother James.

Hey, it makes as much sense as anything.


End file.
